RKMBs Forums .::Important::. Politics and Current Events "It's not about oil or Iraq..."

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Growing GOP Dissent on Iraq

President Bush is facing increasing dissent among leading conservative politicians and pundits in the face of mounting U.S. casualties in Iraq.

The war has become the long slog that some Republicans feared. Since Sunday, 32 Americans have been killed in fighting across Iraq. American body bags are on the front page of major U.S. newspapers.

The Washington Post and The New York Times brandished images of charred U.S. civilian remains last week. The networks are leading their nightly news broadcasts with stories of dead Americans.

"If we have two or three more weeks of this you are going to start to see Republican members of Congress who have never been critical of President Bush and the Iraq policy starting to get that way," said Charles Cook, editor of the nonpartisan Cook Political Report.

Republican Party ranks are beginning to break and the White House is worried. Longtime GOP critics on Iraq are growing progressively more vocal in their condemnation.

The Republican chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Sen. Richard Lugar of Indiana, has strongly suggested that the Bush administration reconsider its June 30 deadline to transfer sovereignty from the interim government to Iraqis.

"How do you know, come June 30, that a civil war will not occur?" Lugar said on Voice of America radio. "After all, the coalition has not disarmed all of these militia that these religious groups have in various places. They still are armed and apparently ready to fight."

Usually loyal pundits are speaking out, too. Conservative columnist George Will wrote in The Washington Post on Wednesday, "U.S. forces in Iraq are insufficient."

There are currently 135,000 U.S. soldiers in Iraq – along with 24,000 international troops – and pressure is rising on the Bush administration to increase troop deployment. But the Department of Defense says it plans to decrease the number of U.S. troops in Iraq by tens of thousands around the June 30 deadline.

The White House continues to claim that most Iraqis support the American presence. But even some ardent conservative backers of the president are voicing skepticism.

"I'm not buying this 'Iraqis are on the American side' right now," Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly said on the Tuesday night broadcast of "The O’Reilly Factor." The leading conservative commentator repeatedly called the current conflict a "second war in Iraq."



O'Reilly added, "I think Rumsfeld has got a lot of explaining to do here. There's a lot of mistakes that are now killing American soldiers."

Fellow conservative pundit and former Republican congressman Joe Scarborough of MSNBC was even more critical in his broadcast Tuesday.

Scarborough: "Do we need more troops in Iraq? Hell, yes, we do. ... Should June 30 handover date to the Iraqis be extended? You can bet your life on it ... because creating this false deadline in time for a presidential election is no way to win a war."

"Now that things aren't going so well, Republican critics are more open in their criticism," Cook said. "When there was a limit in how critical they could be of their own president before, even though they thoroughly disagreed."

Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska told CNN Tuesday that the Bush administration has "few good options" left regarding Iraq. The implication: the White House has dug a ditch that it possibly cannot get out of without getting its hands dirty.

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All voiced concerns about either the expense or number of troops needed to occupy Iraq. All were treated dismissively by the White House. All are gone, but their estimates proved accurate.
http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/0328hardball28.html

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Bush1:

"Trying to eliminate Saddam ... would have incurred incalculable human and political costs. Apprehending him was probably impossible ... We would have been forced to occupy Baghdad and, in effect, rule Iraq ... there was no viable "exit strategy" we could see, violating another of our principles. Furthermore, we had been self-consciously trying to set a pattern for handling aggression in the post-Cold War world. Going in and occupying Iraq, thus unilaterally exceeding the United Nations' mandate, would have destroyed the precedent of international response to aggression that we hoped to establish. Had we gone the invasion route, the United States could conceivably still be an occupying power in a bitterly hostile land."

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"Don't Attack Saddam: Given Saddam's aggressive regional ambitions, as well as his ruthlessness and unpredictability, it may at some point be wise to remove him from power. Whether and when that point should come ought to depend on overall U.S. national security priorities. Our pre-eminent security priority -- underscored repeatedly by the president -- is the war on terrorism. An attack on Iraq at this time would seriously jeopardize, if not destroy, the global counterterrorist campaign we have undertaken."

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Dave the Wonder Boy said:

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whomod said:
"BRING IT ON BABY!! OOO-WWWWW!!!"

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Rioting Across Iraq Kills Nearly 60

By KHALID MOHAMMED, Associated Press Writer

NAJAF, Iraq - Supporters of an anti-American Shiite Muslim cleric rioted in Baghdad and four other Iraqi cities, sparking fighting that killed at least 50 Iraqis, eight U.S. troops and a Salvadoran soldier, in the worst unrest since the spasm of looting and arson immediately after the fall of Saddam Hussein (news - web sites).

The fiercest battle took place Sunday in the streets of Sadr City, Baghdad's largest Shiite neighborhood, where Shiite militiamen fired from rooftops and behind buildings at U.S. troops, killing seven Americans. At least 28 Iraqis were killed in the fighting, a doctor at one local hospital said Monday.

In fighting in the holy city of Najaf Sunday, two soldiers, a Salvadoran and an American, died and at least nine other soldiers were wounded, the Spanish Defense Ministry said. Twenty-two Iraqis died and more than 200 were wounded, said Falah Mohammed, director of the Najaf health department.

Meanwhile, U.S. troops on Monday sealed off Fallujah, apparently ahead of a major operation to pacify the city, one of the most violent cities in the heartland of the insurgency against the American occupation.



U.S. commanders have been vowing a massive response after insurgents killed four American security contractors in the city, west of Baghdad, on Wednesday. After the slayings, residents dragged the Americans' bodies through the streets, hanging two of their charred corpses from a bridge, in horrifying scenes that showed the depth of anti-U.S. sentiment in the city.

The insurgency that has plagued U.S. troops in Iraq (news - web sites) for months has been led by Sunni Muslims. But Sunday's clashes in Baghdad and three other cities threatened to open a dangerous new front: a confrontation with Iraq's powerful Shiite Muslim majority, which has until now largely avoided violence with the Americans.

Hundreds were wounded in Sunday's violence in Baghdad, Najaf, Nasiriyah and Amarah. The riots were ignited by the arrest on Saturday of an aide to anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. Followers of al-Sadr also took over the offices of the governor in the southern city of Basra.

The U.S. troops moved into Baghdad's Sadr City after militiamen took over five police stations in the neighborhood. At least two Humvees burned in the streets, and tanks rolled in, crushing cars.

Al-Shawadir hospital, one of two hospitals in Sadr City, received 28 dead Iraqis and 90 wounded from the fighting, said a doctor, Qassim Saddam. It was not immediately known if the second hospital had received any casualties.

By Monday morning, the militiamen had been forced out of the police stations, and U.S. tanks were parked in one of the neighborhood's main markets.

During a street protest by some 5,000 people Sunday, al-Sadr supporters opened fire on the base of Spanish troops near the Shiite holy city of Najaf, sparking a battle that lasted several hours.

In nearby Kufa, al-Sadr supporters took over a police station.



The unrest appeared to be a show of force by al-Sadr, a 30-year-old cleric known to his reverent followers as `al-Sayed,' or master. Al-Sadr has the backing of hundreds of young seminary students and many impoverished Shiites, devoted to him because of his anti-U.S. stance and the memory of his father, a Shiite religious leader gunned down by suspected Saddam agents in 1999.

"I am happy to die for al-Sayed," said one protester, 21-year-old Ali Hussein, after he was shot in the arm in the Najaf fighting. "Take me to see my mother first then let me die."

Al-Sadr issued a statement later Sunday calling off street protests and saying he would stage a sit-in at a mosque in Kufa, where he has delivered fiery weekly sermons for months.

But the statement also called on followers to "do what you see fit in your provinces. Strike terror in the heart of your enemy ... We can no longer be silent in the face of their abuses."



Some of al-Sadr's followers in Baghdad said they interpreted this as a call for armed resistance against U.S. forces.

Sunday's violence — along with the unrelated killings of two Marines in Anbar province — pushed the U.S. death toll to at least 610.

The violence was touched off by the arrest of Mustafa al-Yacoubi, a senior aide to al-Sadr, on charges of murdering Abdel-Majid al-Khoei, a rival Shiite cleric. A total of 25 arrest warrants have been issued in the case, and 13 suspects have been taken into custody, an official at the coalition headquarters said.

Al-Sadr supporters also were angered by the March 28 closure of his weekly newspaper by U.S. officials. The Americans alleged the newspaper was inciting violence against coalition troops.

Militiamen demonstrating on Sunday against al-Yacoubi's detention also traded fire with Italian troops in the southern city of Nasiriyah and British troops in Amarah.

Shiites comprise about 60 percent of Iraq's 25 million people but were brutally repressed by Saddam, a Sunni Muslim. Al-Sadr is at odds with most Shiites, who hope to gain substantial power in the new Iraqi government.

In other developments Sunday:

_Two U.S. Marines, both assigned to the 1st Marine Division, were killed by an "enemy action" in Anbar province Saturday, the military said. One died Saturday and the other Sunday, the statement said without providing details.

_ In Kirkuk, also in the north, a car bomb exploded, killing three civilians and wounding two others, police said.

_ U.S. administrator L. Paul Bremer announced the appointments of Ali Allawi, the interim trade minister, as the new defense minister and Mohammed al-Shehwani, a former Iraqi air force officer who fled Iraq in 1990, as head of the Iraqi National Intelligence Service.

_ U.N. envoy Lakhdar Brahimi arrived in Baghdad with a team to help in the transition to an interim government after sovereignty is handed back to Iraqis on June 30.

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At least, true to form, some of the right-wingers on talk radio and the internet have moved away from the post WMD' justification for the war of 'liberating the poor Iraqi's and reverted to their wartime calls to "NUKE 'EM ALL, MAN!". But then again, it was sort of predictable.

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You really are a malicious sack of human garbage, Whomod,
to take pleasure in such a terrible turn of events, and
turn it into another partisan attack on conservatives.

A lot of people died yesterday. Iraqi and American.

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whomod said:
Well, spin away please.

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whomod said:
Now why do you suppose the Iraqi's are in the streets trying to kill Americans?

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whomod said:
It's a shame you and JLA don't enlist to get your patriotic jollies off in Iraq.

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Rob Kamphausen said:
well, somebody better tell those japanese civilians to stop ruling over those few peaceful, yet murderous, iraqis, like those damn americans,

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Dave the Wonder Boy said:
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whomod said:
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It's amazing to me that Bush is never wrong, never misinformed and anyone who disagrees with his Administration is instantly and always wrong. Entire nations are wrong, millions of voters are wrong or afraid if they don't vote to Bush's satisfaction, countless millions worldwide who protest the war are wrong. Sceientists and beuaracrats who speak out on what they know to be to be lies are wrong (ONLY when they contradict or dispute an Administration assertion of course If they happen to agree with Bush, then their expertise is impeccable). Any reports contradicting Bush's conclusions are wrong of course. After years of this logic, I think people are starting to wise up.
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Now that Congress has pending legislation (S 89 and HR 163) to prepare for a military draft (after the election), we might think twice about the consequences of continuing to believe what President Bush tells us.
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Incidentally,when the French resisted our call to invade Iraq, French fries became "freedom fries," etc. So are we to now get "freedom rice" and (my favorite) "the freedom inquisition" ?

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Do you really believe your own rhetoric, Whomod?
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Since this post immediately follows mine, I assume you're sweeping me into this "Neo-cons who blindly support Bush and believe everything he says" category.
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Which is certainly far from the truth. Whether it's me, or Rob Kamphausen, or G-man or whoever, I think we've all made clear that we don't believe everything G.W. Bush or his administration says. They're politicians, just as Clinton, Gore, Bush Sr., Reagan, Carter, Nixon and the rest were before them.
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I've not said or implied that G.W. Bush has never made a mistake or is eligible for sainthood or anything. I think most of us have made it clear we would have preferred McCain as our Republican presidential candidate, if he'd been offered to us instead of Bush.
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But at the same time, I still largely support Bush, especially on his foreign/military policy.
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I again say, neither Gore nor Kerry nor Dean would have had the courage to invade Afghanistan or Iraq, and eliminate the gathering and obvious threats in those nations. And we would have been "9/11-ed" again as a result.
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And I'm confident that Al Qaida, the pro-Saddam insurgents in Iraq, and enemies of the United States worldwide would jump for joy if Bush were voted out in November.
And that domestic "useful idiots" such as yourself as well would jump for joy (and again, that term is one used by anti-American Muslims in Al Qaida and other islamic radical groups worldwide for Western leftists' opposition to the U.S., Britain and other governments fighting terror).
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I've certainly not been shy about my criticism of Bush, which I've posted on many threads here on the RKMB boards.
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Here's one example I recently re-read:
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Do liberals HATE the President", page 3 of topic:
http://www.rkmbs.com/Number=205476
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Dave the Wonder Boy said:
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Originally posted by JQ:
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Originally posted by Dave the Wonder Boy:
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Originally posted by JQ:
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It's true that the Koran is more extreme than the Bible. I read somewhere that 1 in every 55 versus talks about "killing infidels."
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Even though the Koran is more violent, more people have been killed in the name of Christianity.

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That last statement I find particularly hard to swallow.

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What's so hard to swallow? It's true!

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First of all, look at Europe and the rest of the democratized West, and look at the Middle East.
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The level of violence and repression in the name of Allah certainly far exceeds that of the Christian world.
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This was already explored in at least one other topic (although as usual, opinions varied) :
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"islamic ignorance"
http://www.rkmbs.com/Number=206064
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If we fully explore this here, it will hijack this topic into another topic of Christianity vs Islam, and I think I've already taken this page further off-topic than I wanted to (sorry about that, G-man !)
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On topic, I think we've established a hatred for Bush among his liberal/Democrat critics.
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And as it relates to the topic, as well as many other RKMB discussions here, I would be far more open to concede Bush's flaws, if not for the white-hot hatred (and resultant distortion of the facts) of the majority of criticism I see of Bush.
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Has Bush made mistakes? Absolutely. And I hope everyone here can see that despite my sensibilities leaning toward the Bush perspective, I've voiced considerable criticism of his policies...
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( a quick review:

• Bush should be more public with disclosure of information, the perceived secretiveness breeds distrust of Bush, whether or not he is guilty of anything;
• in hindsight, he should have had a larger occupation force to invade Iraq, to prevent forseeable looting,
• Bush should be expanding U.S. military recruitment/enlistment by 400,000 or more, to insure we have the reserves to meet any situation in Iraq, Iran, North Korea or elsewhere.
• And although I'm less convinced now there is a military solution possible in Korea, I think Korea should have been invaded first instead of Iraq. Iraq could have waited a year or so, but Korea was clearly more immediate. In the six months of buildup and invasion of Iraq, Korea was known to be building nuclear weapons, and Bush allowed it to happen. (Although negotiations in Korea, though currently fruitless, now include China, Japan, Russia and South Korea, and are no longer just bilateral talks between the U.S. and North Korea. Which now puts more pressure on North Korea, particularly from China, to de-nuclearize.)
  
  ** I hasten to add, I give primary blame to the Clinton administration for enabling Korea to build nukes. THAT was the time to invade Korea, in 1994, instead of Clinton giving huge concessions and requiring no verification, that allowed Korea to go on secretly building nukes. Although again, Bush had his window of opportunity that he allowed to close as well.
  
• I'm not wild about the Bush tax cut, even though little of it has been enacted yet. And I think that tax cut should be repealed, to cover the additional homeland security and war expenses.
• And although I posted a few months ago I wouldn't re-elect Bush, at this point the Democrats' bitterly partisan opposition makes me far more inclined to re-elect Bush over the forseeable Democrat alterative in 2004. )

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I consider that constructive criticism of the President. As opposed to the vitriol over the last year from many (but clearly not all) Democrats.
Senators McCain, Biden and Lieberman are examples of constructive criticism.
Howard Dean and John Kerry are examples of pointlessly divisive, Bush-can-do-no-right, scorched earth rhetoric, that selfishly divides the country just so they can exploit liberal anger and get more votes.
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When Democrats "hate" the President, and produce venomous, deliberately misrepresentative and highly partisan articles and speeches accordingly, they don't convince moderate Republicans. They drive them defensively behind the president.
I'm a personal example of that.

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So once again your ludicrous, venomous accusations have absolutely no substance.

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Dave the Wonder Boy said:


I fully expect Whomod to go on bashing the very people who are trying hard to preserve the freedom he so thoroughly abuses.

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britneyspearsatemyshorts said:

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Dave the Wonder Boy said:
Whomod, you have a pathological need to prove to yourself and everyone else that Republicans are evil.
It is increasingly clear with each new acid-filled post that there's something wrong with YOU, rather than the conservative Republicans you launch blanket attacks on.

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Wednesday said:
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Dave the Wonder Boy said:
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Whomod, you have a pathological need to prove to yourself and everyone else that Republicans are evil.
It is increasingly clear with each new acid-filled post that there's something wrong with YOU, rather than the conservative Republicans you launch blanket attacks on.

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DtWB, you have a pathological need to prove to yourself and everyone else that Democrats are evil.
It is increasingly clear with each new acid-filled post that there's something wrong with YOU, rather than the liberal Democrats you launch blanket attacks on.

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whomod said, on page 29 of this topic:
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"BRING IT ON BABY!! OOO-WWWWW!!!"
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Rioting Across Iraq Kills Nearly 60

By KHALID MOHAMMED, Associated Press Writer

NAJAF, Iraq...
[ article already posted at full length on page 29, with many other images of combatants, street fighting and destruction. --Dave tWB. ]

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At least, true to form, some of the right-wingers on talk radio and the internet have moved away from the post WMD' justification for the war of 'liberating the poor Iraqi's and reverted to their wartime calls to "NUKE 'EM ALL, MAN!". But then again, it was sort of predictable.

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Dave the Wonder Boy said:
The maximum I've ever done is point out the partisan venom with which something like this is posted.

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I can't help thinking that the world would be a better place without you.

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Matter-eater Man said:

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Dave the Wonder Boy said:
The maximum I've ever done is point out the partisan venom with which something like this is posted.

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You have a short memory, yesterday you said:

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I can't help thinking that the world would be a better place without you.

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And please consider your actions when you make broad attacks at Democrats. It's not just Republicans who have given their lives defending this country, nor just Republicans fighting at this very minute for your freedom while you type your poison.

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Dave the Wonder Boy said:

As Vietnam taught us, and every decade going forward, liberals tend to be draft evaders and supporters of the enemy, with a barely restrained contempt for our military. Eager to believe anyone other than their own government.

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Matter-eater Man said:

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Dave the Wonder Boy said:

As Vietnam taught us, and every decade going forward, liberals tend to be draft evaders and supporters of the enemy, with a barely restrained contempt for our military. Eager to believe anyone other than their own government.

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I don't buy that one party is more patriotic than the other, so this following link & article is just to illustrate who your attacking with your generalizations.

http://www.onlineathens.com/stories/040402/let_letter3.shtml
I normally try to ignore Budge Williams' less than enlightening commentaries, but his recent (March 30) jab at Clinton for being a draft-dodger calls for a rebuttal.
What Mr. Williams failed to highlight is our current slate of Republican leaders who dodged Vietnam for the very worst reasons. Some of them include: President George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Rush Limbaugh, Dennis Hastert, George Will, Bill Bennett, Trent Lott, Kenneth Starr, Newt Gingrich, John Ashcroft, Dick Armey, Phil Gramm, Dan Quayle and, the biggest coward of them all, Tom DeLay. The difference between Clinton and these spineless chickenhawks is that Clinton, rightly so, was opposed to the war, whereas these cowards merely sought deferment, without speaking out against a terrible war that even the architects of the war now say was a pointless one.
Currently, many of these chickenhawks are in positions of power to send our troops into harm's way even though they avoided dangerous duty themselves. Why is it conservatives ignore their own cowardly draft-dodgers, but are all too ready to attack Democrats? The last time I checked, Democratic leaders Tom Daschle, Daniel Inouye (Congressional Medal of Honor winner), Ted Kennedy (yes, Ted Kennedy), Dick Gephardt, Al Gore, Bob Kerrey (another Congressional Medal of Honor winner) and John Kerry, a highly decorated Vietnam War hero, all served in the military, while the GOP leaders listed above skipped out.
As the GOP list of draft-dodgers points out, Mr. Williams' jibe at Clinton is hypocritical nonsense. And if you must continue calling Clinton a draft-dodger, please don't forget to include some of the names listed above in your conversation.

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Your liberal argument is, as usual, infuriatingly deceitful.

Kerry, while having served in Vietnam in Special Forces, was grilled about two years ago in a CBS special. While serving, he has admitted publicly that he slaughtered Vietnamese civilians. Slaughtered women and children, say other special forces soldiers who served with Kerry.

There is question of whether Kerry even deserves the medals he received, and a call by some who served with him for that medals to be revoked (as detailed in Dan Rather's televised special report on Kerry).
Kerry recieved one Bronze Star for stabbing a retreating wounded enemy soldier in the back, and three Purple Heart medals for injuries of which none required hospitalization, but for which he pressed his superior officers to award him.

And needless to say, Kerry became a "useful idiot" condemning and undermining the war in Vietnam after he returned from Vietnam.


Clinton evaded service altogether. He lied to his recruitment officer to completely evade service.

Bush Sr., Bob Dole, and John McCain, to name a few Republicans, served honorably and courageously.
McCain was tortured by the North Vietnamese as a P.O.W.
Bush Sr. was shot down as a pilot.
Bob Dole lost partial use of one of his arms in a permanent war injury.

You label service in the National Guard (as Dan Quayle and George Bush both served) as "draft dodging".
I hope you fucking say that sometime to a National Guardsman, and he smashes your face into crimson jelly.

The National Guard is military service. Many dying in Iraq were National Guardsmen, who were called into active duty in Iraq.



And your calling them "draft dodgers" is distortion of the highest order, and deeply insulting.
And deeply unpatriotic.
And deeply unappreciative of the sacrifice these men and women have made, under Clinton and Bush, serving for long periods away from their careers and their families, to say nothing of risking their lives.

How you can equate service in the National Guard with "draft dodging", or with running off to Canada, or with lying to the military draft recruitment officials as Clinton did, is more than deceptive. It's beyond the pale.

I can't say that strongly enough.
Fuck you, you miserable piece of shit ! How dare you label their sacrifice for their country as "draft dodging", and try to label it as "no worse" than the true draft evasion of Bill Clinton and others. "No worse" than the leftist allegience and solidarity Kerry and others demonstrated with the enemies of the United States after his return from Vietnam. Please.

It's clearly a waste of my time to try and reason with a person who can think like that.

By your maliciously flawed reasoning, I guess Coast Guard, Border Patrol, FBI, CIA, and Military Police are "draft evaders" too.

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Chant said:
Would you agree, Wonder Boy, that not all Liberals are spewing venom filled at your administration, would you agree that conservatives too, is part of the "mud-casting contest"?

I am a liberal, and I am pro-war against Saddam, though I am not an american.

But it seems to me that both sides are throwing mud at each other......not unlike your presidential election.

Ps. I'm not trying to degrade anyone, hope you don't take it the wrong way

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I just see how Bush is being attacked, and I think liberals in government and the media paint a tremendously distorted picture.
There is no balance to the reporting, or the rhetoric of Democrat leaders.

And as I've ALSO said across several topics, how can conservative views be fairly weighed, if they're dismissively ignored?
Look at the protest signs in Whomod's posts.
Look at the "representative" slogans of liberal/Democrat posters that Matter Eater Man posted.

You are a reasonable liberal, Chant. Do you truly have no problem with that kind of liberal rhetoric? It is pure slander. pure acid. There is no discussion of the issues by liberals.
They assume that Bush, Cheney, etc., are evil, greedy, getting kickbacks, lining their pockets, wanting to use nukes on people, goose-stepping Nazis, on and on.

Is that fair?
Is that logical?
Is it appealing to reason, and encouraging a civil and democratic debate for the best solution?

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Did you hear what Matter Eater Man was just saying about those who served in our National Guard, and how he equates serving in the National Guard as no better than draft evasion ?
Do you, as a liberal, have a problem with that? I sure as hell do.

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And I wonder how you, Chant, as a reasonable liberal, can be okay with the bitter tactics and bitter unfounded allegations, and utter lack of civility, of your brother liberals.

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Never once in the three years of relentless allegations and conspiracy theories against Bush have I ever heard a liberal say: well geez, you know, that's pretty unfair to Bush...

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I'm just glad that we don't see this kind of slander and rhetoric in Denmark, if you ever want to get away from it Dave, I courtly invite you visit my homeland

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Dave the Wonder Boy said:

You label service in the National Guard (as Dan Quayle and George Bush both served) as "evading service".
I hope you fucking say that sometime to a National Guardsman, and he smashes your face into crimson jelly.

The National Guard is military service. Many dying in Iraq were National Guardsmen, who were called into active duty in Iraq.

And your calling them "draft evaders" is distortion of the highest order, and deeply insulting.
And deeply unpatriotic.
And deeply unappreciative of the sacrifice these men and women have made, under Clinton and Bush, serving for long periods away from their careers and their families, to say nothing of risking their lives.

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I obviously wasn't referring to our National Guardsmen but to those from wealthy influential families that used it to evade the draft. Please take note of the Colin Powell quote as he says it much better. Incredibly cheap & scummy for you to even try & infer I was slamming our troops. If for nothing else, nobody in the National Guards is a draft dodger because their is no draft to dodge. Please don't hide behind them or cheap patriotism that dissolves when you bash vets & others that are serving our country but don't share your political views. And I would love to see you tell one of our servicemen that Bush's term of service was every bit as good as theirs. (preferably while your blocking them from enemy fire)

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Matter-eater Man said:
I am angry that so many of the sons of the powerful and well-placed ... managed to wangle slots in Reserve and National Guard units .... Of the many tragedies of Vietnam, this raw class discrimination strikes me as the most damaging to the ideal that all Americans are created equal and owe equal allegiance to their country (Colin Powell, My American Journey, p. 148)

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Dave the Wonder Boy said:

You label service in the National Guard (as Dan Quayle and George Bush both served) as "evading service".
I hope you fucking say that sometime to a National Guardsman, and he smashes your face into crimson jelly.

The National Guard is military service. Many dying in Iraq were National Guardsmen, who were called into active duty in Iraq.

And your calling them "draft evaders" is distortion of the highest order, and deeply insulting.
And deeply unpatriotic.
And deeply unappreciative of the sacrifice these men and women have made, under Clinton and Bush, serving for long periods away from their careers and their families, to say nothing of risking their lives.

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I obviously wasn't referring to our National Guardsmen but to those from wealthy influential families that used it to evade the draft. Please take note of the Colin Powell quote as he says it much better. Incredibly cheap & scummy for you to even try & infer I was slamming our troops. If for nothing else, nobody in the National Guards is a draft dodger because their is no draft to dodge. Please don't hide behind them or cheap patriotism that dissolves when you bash vets & others that are serving our country but don't share your political views. And I would love to see you tell one of our servicemen that Bush's term of service was every bit as good as theirs. (preferably while your blocking them from enemy fire)

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Dave the Wonder Boy said:

The Colin Powell quote (about a situation that existed during the Vietnam-era military draft from 1964-1973, but no longer exists)is about the disparity of service between rich and poor, NOT as you allege, that Republicans got cushy military service position, and Democrats allegedly had to do the real fighting.
It is partisan and deceitful for you to allege that it was Republicans who were across the board assigned to cushy positions. And you did saythat National Guard service by Bush was "draft evasion", which is exactly the type of contempt for armed service as I've come to expect from you, and liberals like you.

You know exactly what you insinuate about the National Guard, and then you backpedal when called on it to imply you meant something else.

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Matter Eater Man said:
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What Mr. Williams failed to highlight is our current slate of Republican leaders who dodged Vietnam for the very worst reasons. Some of them include: President George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Rush Limbaugh, Dennis Hastert, George Will, Bill Bennett, Trent Lott, Kenneth Starr, Newt Gingrich, John Ashcroft, Dick Armey, Phil Gramm, Dan Quayle and, the biggest coward of them all, Tom DeLay. The difference between Clinton and these spineless chickenhawks is that Clinton, rightly so, was opposed to the war, whereas these cowards merely sought deferment, without speaking out against a terrible war that even the architects of the war now say was a pointless one.
   Currently, many of these chickenhawks are in positions of power to send our troops into harm's way even though they avoided dangerous duty themselves. Why is it conservatives ignore their own cowardly draft-dodgers, but are all too ready to attack Democrats? The last time I checked, Democratic leaders Tom Daschle, Daniel Inouye (Congressional Medal of Honor winner), Ted Kennedy (yes, Ted Kennedy), Dick Gephardt, Al Gore, Bob Kerrey (another Congressional Medal of Honor winner) and John Kerry, a highly decorated Vietnam War hero, all served in the military, while the GOP leaders listed above skipped out.
   As the GOP list of draft-dodgers points out, Mr. Williams' jibe at Clinton is hypocritical nonsense. And if you must continue calling Clinton a draft-dodger, please don't forget to include some of the names listed above in your conversation.

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Matter-eater Man said:

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Dave the Wonder Boy said:

As Vietnam taught us, and every decade going forward, liberals tend to be draft evaders and supporters of the enemy, with a barely restrained contempt for our military. Eager to believe anyone other than their own government.

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I don't buy that one party is more patriotic than the other, so this following link & article is just to illustrate who your attacking with your generalizations.

http://www.onlineathens.com/stories/040402/let_letter3.shtml
 I normally try to ignore Budge Williams' less than enlightening commentaries, but his recent (March 30) jab at Clinton for being a draft-dodger calls for a rebuttal.
   What Mr. Williams failed to highlight is our current slate of Republican leaders who dodged Vietnam for the very worst reasons. Some of them include: President George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Rush Limbaugh, Dennis Hastert, George Will, Bill Bennett, Trent Lott, Kenneth Starr, Newt Gingrich, John Ashcroft, Dick Armey, Phil Gramm, Dan Quayle and, the biggest coward of them all, Tom DeLay. The difference between Clinton and these spineless chickenhawks is that Clinton, rightly so, was opposed to the war, whereas these cowards merely sought deferment, without speaking out against a terrible war that even the architects of the war now say was a pointless one.
   Currently, many of these chickenhawks are in positions of power to send our troops into harm's way even though they avoided dangerous duty themselves. Why is it conservatives ignore their own cowardly draft-dodgers, but are all too ready to attack Democrats? The last time I checked, Democratic leaders Tom Daschle, Daniel Inouye (Congressional Medal of Honor winner), Ted Kennedy (yes, Ted Kennedy), Dick Gephardt, Al Gore, Bob Kerrey (another Congressional Medal of Honor winner) and John Kerry, a highly decorated Vietnam War hero, all served in the military, while the GOP leaders listed above skipped out.
   As the GOP list of draft-dodgers points out, Mr. Williams' jibe at Clinton is hypocritical nonsense. And if you must continue calling Clinton a draft-dodger, please don't forget to include some of the names listed above in your conversation.

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Cheney, Powell Split Over Iraq, Book Says

Sat Apr 17, 1:54 AM ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of State Colin Powell are so upset with one another over the Iraq war that they are barely on speaking terms, according to excerpts from a new book published in the Washington Post on Saturday.

The book, entitled "Plan of Attack," is not due to be released until next week but the Post's assistant managing editor, Robert Woodward, wrote it and the newspaper is reporting from it.

Woodward, perhaps best known for his role in the Watergate scandal that forced the resignation of president Richard Nixon in 1974, interviewed administration officials for the book, including Bush.

He writes that the relationship between Cheney and Powell became so strained over the plans to invade Iraq that Cheney and Powell are barely on speaking terms.

Powell, Woodward said, opposed the war and believed Cheney was obsessively trying to establish a connection between Iraq and the al Qaeda terrorist network. He said Powell believed Cheney took ambiguous intelligence and treated it as fact.

"Powell felt Cheney and his allies -- his chief aide, I. Lewis 'Scooter' Libby, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz and Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas J. Feith and what Powell called Feith's 'Gestapo' office -- had established what amounted to a separate government," the Post writes.

"The vice president, for his part, believed Powell was mainly concerned with his own popularity and told friends at a dinner he hosted a year ago celebrating the outcome of the war that Powell was a problem and 'always had major reservations about what we were trying to do."'

But Powell agreed to publicly support the war after Bush personally asked him to, according to Woodward's book.

Bush also said he prayed for divine guidance in launching the war.

"I am prepared to risk my presidency to do what I think is right," the Post quotes Bush as saying.

Bush told Woodward he was cooperating on the book because he wanted the story of how the United States had gone to war in Iraq to be told.

Bush hoped to leave a record that "will enable other leaders, if they feel like they have to go to war, to spare innocent citizens and their lives."

"But the news of this, in my judgment, the big news out of this isn't how George W. makes decisions," Bush is quoted as saying.

"To me the big news is America has changed how you fight and win war, and therefore makes it easier to keep the peace in the long run. And that's the historical significance of this book, as far as I'm concerned."

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By the way Matter eater Man, Dave is right! What's wrong with you??!!

Bush wasn't a draft dodger!

He was an AWOL deserter

Which is completely different than a 'suicider'. they just sound the same.

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Dave the Wonder Boy said:
You give lip service to the idea that...

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Matter Eater Man:
I don't buy that one party is more patriotic than the other...

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...even as you allege that all the Republican leadership are "chickenhawks" and "cowards", and "draft evaders" who are somehow worse than Clinton because they served in the National Guard. Instead of evading service altogether and protesting the war like Clinton (who in truth did nothing heroic, he simply lied to his draft officer, and evaded service in a cowardly way by making excuses and writing false letters of why he couldn't serve).

Love that Orwellian double think (maintaining two contradictory ideas simultaneously).

The contradiction reveals the lie in your alleged non-partisan view of patriotism.

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And despite your Clintonesque distortion of the truth, you still said...

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Matter Eater man said:
What Mr. Williams failed to highlight is our current slate of Republican leaders who dodged Vietnam for the very worst reasons. Some of them include: President George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Rush Limbaugh, Dennis Hastert, George Will, Bill Bennett, Trent Lott, Kenneth Starr, Newt Gingrich, John Ashcroft, Dick Armey, Phil Gramm, Dan Quayle and, the biggest coward of them all, Tom DeLay.

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Clearly stating who you were implicating.
And...

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Matter Eater Man:
Why is it conservatives ignore their own cowardly draft-dodgers, but are all too ready to attack Democrats?

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Again, you clearly say that George W. Bush, by serving in the National Guard, is a "draft dodger".

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Actually neither Clinton or President Bush were draft dodgers if you go by the true definition. It applied to those that had been drafted & then tried dodging actually going into the services. The writer was addressing another columnist who despite being conservative had a liberal definition of a draft dodger by applying it to Clinton.

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And your alleging that the above is "not exactly what [you] posted", and that you said something to the contrary is just so much smoke and mirrors.

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Please do remember you originally omitted the only part that I actually wrote while reposting the writer's article stating that was exactly what I said. You add it back in but dismiss it as lip service. So apparently what I do say is "lip service" and what I haven't is clearly implied & context means nothing.

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So... you are a lying piece of crap after all.

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Considering the logic & word games you used to come by that conclusion I'm not the least bit offended. I will do some actual backpedalling and apologize for the "shield from enemy fire" crack I made a page back. That was low of me and I'm sorry. Oh & just to be clear that apology is only for that, nothing else is implied

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whomod said:

By the way Matter eater Man, Dave is right! What's wrong with you??!!

Bush wasn't a draft dodger!

He was an AWOL deserter

Which is completely different than a 'suicider'. they just sound the same.

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Well you know us liberals, (which is anybody left of McCaine these days) I stupidly used a conservative's definition of a draft dodger & and forgot it only applied to Democrats & you know how they don't like to share

Shouldn't you be calling Republicans nazis or something, slacker.

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whomod said:

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Cheney, Powell Split Over Iraq, Book Says
.
Sat Apr 17, 1:54 AM ET
.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of State Colin Powell are so upset with one another over the Iraq war that they are barely on speaking terms, according to excerpts from a new book published in the Washington Post on Saturday.
.
The book, entitled "Plan of Attack," is not due to be released until next week but the Post's assistant managing editor, Robert Woodward, wrote it and the newspaper is reporting from it.
.
Woodward, perhaps best known for his role in the Watergate scandal that forced the resignation of president Richard Nixon in 1974, interviewed administration officials for the book, including Bush.
.
He writes that the relationship between Cheney and Powell became so strained over the plans to invade Iraq that Cheney and Powell are barely on speaking terms.
.
Powell, Woodward said, opposed the war and believed Cheney was obsessively trying to establish a connection between Iraq and the al Qaeda terrorist network. He said Powell believed Cheney took ambiguous intelligence and treated it as fact.
.
"Powell felt Cheney and his allies -- his chief aide, I. Lewis 'Scooter' Libby, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz and Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas J. Feith and what Powell called Feith's 'Gestapo' office -- had established what amounted to a separate government," the Post writes.
.
"The vice president, for his part, believed Powell was mainly concerned with his own popularity and told friends at a dinner he hosted a year ago celebrating the outcome of the war that Powell was a problem and 'always had major reservations about what we were trying to do."'
.
But Powell agreed to publicly support the war after Bush personally asked him to, according to Woodward's book.
.
Bush also said he prayed for divine guidance in launching the war.
.
"I am prepared to risk my presidency to do what I think is right," the Post quotes Bush as saying.
.
Bush told Woodward he was cooperating on the book because he wanted the story of how the United States had gone to war in Iraq to be told.
.
Bush hoped to leave a record that "will enable other leaders, if they feel like they have to go to war, to spare innocent citizens and their lives."
.
"But the news of this, in my judgment, the big news out of this isn't how George W. makes decisions," Bush is quoted as saying.
.
"To me the big news is America has changed how you fight and win war, and therefore makes it easier to keep the peace in the long run. And that's the historical significance of this book, as far as I'm concerned."

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.
By the way Matter eater Man, Dave is right! What's wrong with you??!!
.
Bush wasn't a draft dodger!
.
He was an AWOL deserter
.
Which is completely different than a 'suicider'. they just sound the same.

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April 17, 2004


THE NATION
Bush Focused on Hussein in Late 2001, Book Says

Bob Woodward writes that money to be used in Afghanistan was quietly shifted to Iraq planning.

By Peter Wallsten, Times Staff Writer


WASHINGTON — President Bush asked for a plan to invade Iraq in November 2001, less than three months after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and at a time when U.S. forces were in the midst of ousting the Taliban regime from Afghanistan.

The timing of Bush's war planning, revealed in a book to be released Monday and confirmed Friday by the White House, is likely to fuel criticism that the Bush administration was preoccupied with Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein at the expense of pursuing Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups.

"You're talking about the late period of November, when things were winding down in Afghanistan," White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan told reporters, confirming that Bush spoke to Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld at that time "about planning related to Iraq."

"But there is a difference between planning and making a decision" to go to war, McClellan said.

The timing of Bush's planning to oust Hussein is one of several insights in the new book, "Plan of Attack," by journalist Bob Woodward.

In two other recent books, former administration insiders said they were surprised by the president's early focus on Iraq.

Bush's intense interest in Iraq became clear within days of his inauguration, said the president's former treasury secretary, Paul H. O'Neill. Richard Clarke, a former counter-terrorism official for Bush and previous presidents, wrote that the day after the Sept. 11 attacks, Bush aggressively instructed him and other aides to "see if Saddam did this," despite evidence pointing to the Al Qaeda network.

In his book, Woodward describes Vice President Dick Cheney as a "powerful, steamrolling force" in the administration who some in the government believed had a "fever" for taking down Hussein.

The Iraqi leader had invaded Kuwait during the administration of Bush's father and was accused by the U.S. of later plotting to kill the former president, for whom Cheney served as defense secretary.

The book also says the current president was not satisfied with the early intelligence on Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction, according to Associated Press, which obtained an advance copy of the book. Bush and other administration officials later pointed to suspected illegal weapons caches as a justification for war.

The book states that after a CIA briefing on the intelligence, Bush said the data would leave the public unconvinced, according to Associated Press. But CIA Director George J. Tenet described the case against Iraq as a "slam dunk."

Bush said he took Tenet's assurances as a guarantee, Woodward said during an interview on the CBS program "60 Minutes,'' scheduled to air Sunday.

No weapons of mass destruction have been found in Iraq, and critics have accused the administration of misleading Congress and the public in its haste to invade.

The book says Bush predicted "enormous international angst and domestic speculation" if word got out that he had asked so early for an Iraq plan, according to Associated Press.

"It was such a high-stakes moment and … it would look like that I was anxious to go to war," the president is quoted as saying. "And I'm not anxious to go to war."

The book describes resistance within the administration to the planning for war against Iraq. Gen. Tommy Franks, who was leading the war in Afghanistan, cursed when he was asked to begin thinking about Iraq, according to the Associated Press account of the book.

The book comes at a time when a recent surge in violence in Iraq presents new challenges to Bush in maintaining public support for the war ahead of the November presidential election.

As were the Clarke and O'Neill books, the Woodward book is being released with a well-orchestrated publicity effort that was to begin with the "60 Minutes" interview.

The blitz was preempted, however, when Associated Press reported excerpts Friday, even beating Woodward's own newspaper, the Washington Post, where he is an assistant managing editor.

Bush was asked Friday about his planning for an Iraq war less than three months after the Sept. 11 attacks. He said he could not recall exact dates but insisted that his primary focus at the time was ousting the Taliban.

Referring to conversations that took place four days after the attacks in 2001, Bush said, "I sat down with my national security team to discuss the response, and the subject of Iraq came up.

"And I said as plainly as I possibly could, we'll focus on Afghanistan."

Bush made his comments during a Rose Garden news conference with his closest ally on the Iraq war, British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

Executives for the book's publisher, Simon & Schuster, refused Friday to release excerpts, sticking to their publicity plan that also forbade stores from putting the book on shelves until Monday.

CBS and Simon & Schuster are owned by Viacom.

According to Woodward, the administration quietly shifted money around to pay for early preparations for war in Iraq, without the approval of Congress.

He said those preparations included building landing strips and addressing other military needs in Kuwait.

The money, about $700 million, was taken in July 2002 from a budget item that had been approved for the war in Afghanistan, Woodward wrote.

"Some people are going to look at that document called the Constitution, which says that no money will be drawn from the Treasury unless appropriated by Congress," Woodward says in his CBS interview.

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This should keep Karl Rove, Scott McClellan and the Right Wing attack machine well occupied for the next several weeks. I won't hold my breath waiting for the GOP congress to investigate this though. Still, it's fun watching them scramble to further deceive inveigle and obfuscate on the heels of every revelation these past weeks.

Maybe somewhere down the road, he'll fight the creation of an independent commision to look into this and when public opinion forces him to do just that, he'll then talk as if it was his idea all along!

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"I'm tired of Karl Rove and Dick Cheney and a bunch of people who went out of their way to avoid their chance to serve when they had the chance."

"I went," [to Vietnam] "I'm not going to listen to them talk to me about patriotism and how asking questions about the direction of our country somehow challenges patriotism. Because asking questions about the direction of our country is patriotism." - John Kerrey

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Bravo.

Here, let me lighten the mood now with an unrelated post. It was by far the funniest shit I saw this week. Aaron McGruder is IMO the funniest strip writer working today (plus he makes a great talk show guest).